"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." -C.S. Lewis

The Irish know a lot about suffering.  Ann gave me this quote as I began expressing doubts about a certain crush I've formed and perhaps pursued more than I am comfortable with...he knows, and now I want to retreat, to flee, to become invisible to him as I used to be.  I'm fragile right now, you know?  It's astounding to me that I've made progress enough to want to love again; now I'm shying away from a possibility because I'm afraid of more rejection.  I'm like a puppy who was abused in his former home: sad, uncertain, hesitant.  What do I do? My heart's in purgatory.

Valerie had some good advice, or maybe it's just general information, but what she said was interesting.  It's all about the mindset.  There is a difference between attachment and commitment. For example, if I'm attached to the idea of having you come to my birthday party, I really really want you to come and if you don't then it means you don't care about me and I will cry and I won't speak to you for a week!! (this, of course, is silly, and all in my head) If I'm committed to you coming, however, I still really want you to come... but if you don't, I have no place to be disappointed for long - I let it go, and move on with the moment.  That is strength.  You don't have to give up expectations, but you don't have to make ultimatums and stress out about other people's actions, the only person you control is you.  Jesse recently told me something similar, noticing my flaw of getting upset about little things.  Hmm.

So, all in all, things are weird. I feel like a tightrope walker, careful of my every move.  Maybe all I gotta do is get loose, let things flow, don't get attatched to my hopes for others, etc.  It's hard, though. The rope is thin.......